Inside an IFS Therapy Session with Glennon & Richard C. Schwartz
April 2, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, everybody. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. In Thinking about this episode, I want to say this, this episode is for anyone who thinks of themselves as a relatively intelligent person, but has things that they do in their life that they don’t understand why they do them.
Abby Wambach:
I.e., every single one of us listening.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I don’t know, maybe some people understand themselves completely. But what I will say is I am a person who understood most of myself, but had a self-sabotaging, many self-sabotaging actions. So I’m talking about eating disorder stuff right now, but I know a lot of people who have parts of themselves that sabotage themselves, like shut down in relationships, like lash out. There’s a million things that people do, and at the end of the day they say, “Why do I do that? And how do I stop?” And the person who’s here today has helped me more than anyone else start to understand why I do the things I do that are harmful.
Actually, that’s it. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Okay. But that in itself has been a revolution. So Richard C. Schwartz PhD is the creator of Internal Family Systems, a freaking celebrity for our pod squatters, a highly effective evidence-based therapeutic model that de-pathologizes the multi-part personality. His IFS Institute offers training for professionals and the general public. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and has published five books including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Thank you for your work and thank you for being with us today. And what should I call you? Dr. Schwartz?
Dick Schwartz:
No, call me Dick.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Thank you, Dick. It’s amazing to call you that after your work has informed the people that helped me, my therapist, so thank you for what you’ve done.
Dick Schwartz:
Well, thank you. I had no idea that you have had so much experience, and I’m very honored to be invited on this. I didn’t realize what a big deal it was until my wife told me, who is a huge fan and knows all of you very intimately. So yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Well, it’s totally changed our marriage in ways and the way that we communicate with each other. I don’t know. I just think that there’s this personalization that we have with all the parts of ourselves, and when you can break yourself into, or at least explain yourself through these parts, it manages to cut through the hurt feelings in a way because it makes it a little bit less personal. I don’t know if I’m saying that right, but it’s just been so helpful for both Glennon and I, so thank you.
Dick Schwartz:
Well, again, I’m just honored to hear this. I didn’t realize.
Glennon Doyle:
When I was thinking about how I wanted the Pod Squad to hear you speak first, I kept thinking about the girl in treatment who was cutting. Can you tell that story? Your work started in eating disorder recovery, right?
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah this goes back, this is our 40-year anniversary of the development of the model. So I’m very old and it’s been a long journey. And I started out as a family therapist. I have a PhD in that, and was one of those obnoxious family therapists that at the time thought we’d found the holy grail and people that mucked around in the inner world were wasting their time because we could change all that by just reorganizing families. And we set out to prove that, and did an outcome study with bulimia. And so gathered together 30 bulimic kids and their families, and I found I could reorganize the families just the way the book said to, and my clients didn’t realize they’d been cured because they kept binging and purging despite all this great family therapy. And so I asked why, and they started talking this language of parts, which was foreign to me at the time.
And they were talking about these parts as if they had a lot of autonomy, and like you said in the intro, could make them do things they didn’t want to do, but they didn’t know why, like binge and purge. And so at some point I got over my, “Oh my God, these people are really sick.” And started listening inside myself and, “Oh my God, I’ve got them too.” And then I started getting really curious and had a few clients that were extremely articulate about the whole phenomenon, basically taught all this to me. But at first I was treating these parts or thinking of them the way the field still does by and large, which is the binge is an out of control impulse and then there’s that nasty critic inside and it’s just a internalization of your father’s voice or something. And so when you think of them that way, you don’t have many alternatives in terms of how to help your client relate to them other than fight with the critic, control the binge.
And it wasn’t until the client you mentioned, because I tried doing that, my clients were getting worse as I tried to get them to do this, but I didn’t know what else to do because that’s the way I was thinking of it. And then I had the client you mentioned who cut herself in addition to the bulimia. So at one point I decided I wasn’t going to let her out of my session because it was driving me crazy to have her do this on my watch without that part agreeing not to do it to her that week. So after a couple of hours of just badgering the part, it finally said, “I won’t cut her. Okay.” And I opened the door to the next session and she had a big gash down the side of her face, and I totally emotionally collapsed at that point and said, “I give up. I can’t beat you at this.” And the part said, “I don’t really want to beat you.” So that was the turning point in the history of this model. Then I just got curious then why do you do this to her?
And proceeded to tell me the whole history of how when she was being abused as a child, it had to step in and distract her from that. And it turned out that it was a heroic story. I could actually shift and have a huge appreciation for how it basically saved her life. And as I did that, the part broke into tears because everyone had demonized it and tried to get rid of it. And finally somebody is understanding and appreciating it. And from that, I just started trying that same approach to the other clients in the study and to their eating, their binging parts and basically found the same thing, which was just amazing that each of them had a secret history of how they got into the role they were in.
They didn’t like the role they were in, but they didn’t think they had a choice. They still thought the client was five years old often and was in a bad situation that they needed to protect them in. And they carried what I call burdens, which are these extreme beliefs and emotions that come into you during a trauma and adhere to these parts almost like a virus and drive the way they operate. So as I got that, everything changed in terms of how I approached people and how I understood all kinds of psychiatric syndromes.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you explain IFS, the theory, the idea of it, like you’re explaining it to a third-grader?
Dick Schwartz:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Just in the simplest ways, so people who have not heard of this can grasp it.
Dick Schwartz:
Yeah. Actually young kids get this much more quickly than adults actually, because they haven’t been socialized away from the phenomena. But I would say, “You have a part that does this, right?” They’ll say, “Yeah, I do. And then there’s this one and this one, this one too.” So the basic idea is that in contrast to the way most of us think of ourselves and our minds, we are actually multiple personalities. Not in the sense that we have that disorder, but in the sense that we do have these autonomous little parts, I call them, other systems call them sub personalities or other names like that, that they are little minds inside of us and they are what we call thinking, usually. They’re just arguing or talking or trying to give us advice all the time. And it turns out that there are no bad parts that now after 40 years of doing this, I can safely say that I’ve never met a part that ultimately I didn’t like.
And I’ve worked with parts that have done horrible things. And even those parts, when you get your client to be curious about them, will share their secret history of how they had to do what they do at some point, and they got stuck in that role. So like kids in a family though, they start out just innocent and pure and open and eager inner children really. But traumas or I don’t know if a ten-year-old would know what a trauma is, but bad parenting, all the kind of things that come to you as problems in your life, force them out of their naturally valuable roles into extreme roles that can be damaging and also freeze them in time during the time of the trauma. So that if I were working with you Glennon, and I would say, ask this critic how old it thinks you are, you’ll usually get a single digit, it thinks you’re still 10 years old and it still has to protect you the way it did back then.
And then also, as I said, they accrue these extreme beliefs and emotions that then drive them that we call burdens. So that’s parts. But the big deal about IFS, the biggest discovery from my point of view is that in addition to these parts and when they open space inside, there’s a you that has these wonderful qualities, what I call the eight C’s of what I call self-leadership, that include calm, curiosity, confidence, compassion, creativity, courage, clarity and connectedness.
That that’s who you are at your essence and that can’t be damaged, which was amazing, just amazing to stumble into. And when you can access that, that you knows how to relate to these parts in a healing way and knows how to relate to other people in a healing way, and you’ll begin to relate to parts and people from those eight C qualities. So that’s the big discovery of IFS and that it’s just beneath the surface of these parts so that when they open space, it pops out spontaneously. So when I’m working with someone, I’ll access that place first and then in that state have them begin to get to know whatever part we want to work with.
Glennon Doyle:
So that’s like the self, the capital S is the, I don’t know where I started thinking of it this way, somebody suggested it, but it feels like I’m like a big conference table and there’s all these parts of me that are at the table trying to make decisions. And then there’s the wise self at the head of the table, which is my capital S self who believes in and knows and is made of the C’s. Can you say them again?
Dick Schwartz:
So calm. So at the head of the table, you’re feeling pretty calm. You also have a lot of confidence relative to the parts, and you’re very curious about them. You’re not assuming things about them, you’re open to hearing from them. And you have compassion. You have a built-in caring for them that they can sense and you see them clearly. So when you’re blended with some of these protective parts, all you see are distorted images of these parts. When you’re in self, you can see this is just a little kid, it’s not a critic. And so that’s clarity. And then you can be much more creative in how you relate to them. So you have creativity and you feel a connection to them. So connectedness and you want to connect with them, the ones you don’t feel connected to, and you have courage. You have the courage to actually go to the places in your psyche that otherwise you’d be really scared to go to. So that’s one version of the eight C’s. And we actually do have a conference table technique, just like you’re describing.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, no way.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
So now I can think of it as there is a me that is at the head of the table.
Dick Schwartz:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
And so I have a part, so the bulimic, eating disordered, it has changed over time. It’s been binging, it’s been purging, it’s been anorexic, it’s been bulimic, it’s been all the things. That is a part. I have spent my whole life thinking, why am I crazy? I am always trying to figure out am I crazy or am I sane? Am I good or am I bad? And so this has helped me figure out I’m not crazy or sane. I’m not good or bad, I just have all of these. I have a part that like the little girl who was cutting or the woman who was cutting felt like when things get stressful, I protect Glennon by.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
How would you describe what that part is trying to do to help me?
Dick Schwartz:
Have you asked yours?
Abby Wambach:
Ooh, this is good. Let’s go.
Glennon Doyle:
I think a little bit I have asked.
Abby Wambach:
And what does it say?
Glennon Doyle:
Sure. Sure. Shut up, Abby.
It’s saying shut up, Abby, mostly.
Dick Schwartz:
Do you want Abby to leave the room?
Glennon Doyle:
No. I love. No, no. She’s a good part. Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. If you want to, I do a little piece with you. Sure.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, great.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my god, I love this.
Dick Schwartz:
All right, so focus on the eating disorder part and find it in your body or around your body.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Dick Schwartz:
Where do you find it?
Glennon Doyle:
I feel it in my stomach right now. I’m just going to say whatever comes to my mind. I don’t know. I think so.
Dick Schwartz:
Please, please.
Abby Wambach:
You’re not going to fail at this. This is not a pass fail situation.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s exactly right. So whatever part worries about that, maybe it could relax back.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Got it.
Dick Schwartz:
So as you find it in your stomach there, as you notice it there, how do you feel toward it, Glennon.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel very, very, very warm toward it.
Dick Schwartz:
Good. Perfect. So let it know that and just see how it reacts to your warmth, your compassion.
Glennon Doyle:
It just feels like warm, like a melding of colors or something.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay, good.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. And do you feel open to getting to know it too?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I do. I think that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last year.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. So ask what it wants you to know about itself and don’t think of the answer. Just wait and if nothing comes, that’s okay, but just see if something does come.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, what came immediately was I’ve always just tried to protect us.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. And how do you feel toward hearing that?
Glennon Doyle:
I feel love.
Dick Schwartz:
So let it know.
Glennon Doyle:
I love you.
Dick Schwartz:
And maybe ask it what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t do this or do it in the past. What was it afraid would happen?
Glennon Doyle:
I think it was-
Dick Schwartz:
No, don’t think.
Glennon Doyle:
What it said, it’s afraid we’ll get big.
Dick Schwartz:
And what would happen? Ask it, what would happen if you got big?
Glennon Doyle:
We wouldn’t be lovable.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. Does that make sense to you, Glennon?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. So let it know that that makes sense, that it was trying to keep you small enough to be lovable.
Glennon Doyle:
That makes sense.
Dick Schwartz:
And see how it reacts to being understood better.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel like it’s really excited. Now I just feel fucking crazy.
Dick Schwartz:
Why?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know.
Dick Schwartz:
No, you’re doing great.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s excited.
Dick Schwartz:
It’s excited to be heard, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
Great.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, really excited.
Dick Schwartz:
So ask it now how old it thinks you are?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t think it knows.
Dick Schwartz:
You’re not getting an answer?
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. Okay. That’s fine.
Glennon Doyle:
To be fair, I never know how old I am either, so my parts-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, numbers are not your specialty.
Dick Schwartz:
Yeah. I just wanted you to reassure it that you’re not a little kid anymore.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
So maybe you could just do that even though you didn’t get a number.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I think-
Dick Schwartz:
And see how it reacts.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it feels like that is possible, but I don’t think it feels sure yet.
Dick Schwartz:
Yeah. Okay. So ask it more about that, about it’s not being sure that you’re not a kid.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it feels like it’s a little part of me who feels hopeful that I am becoming a responsible adult that can take care of things and protect it, but it’s also unsure that it’s not completely confident yet.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
So it’s like, “Eh, okay, are you sure you’ve got this?”
Dick Schwartz:
And what do you say?
Glennon Doyle:
I am more confident than I’ve ever been that I am going to be able to lead us, but I understand its hesitancy to believe that because we’ve started and tried so many times.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s great. Yeah. Let it know you have to keep earning its trust and you plan to do that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
See how it reacts.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I think it’s like, “All right.” I think it’s really sweet and hopeful.
Dick Schwartz:
And ask in the future from here on, if there’s something it needs from you to earn its trust, just ask that question. Don’t think, Glennon.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it feels like-
Dick Schwartz:
A couple of times you preface with I think so just wait and see what comes.
Glennon Doyle:
It feels as if, and I don’t know what this is, but it’s like, well then we’ll know when we stop doing things that we shouldn’t be doing. It feels like why then do you put us in situations that make us afraid or it’s too hard for us, but you keep doing it.
Dick Schwartz:
So you know what it’s talking about?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, but sometimes I feel scared that what it’s talking about is everything.
Dick Schwartz:
So ask it. Ask it. Ask if that’s everything, or if it’s just certain situations, just ask and wait for the answer.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s saying.
Dick Schwartz:
Nothing’s coming?
Glennon Doyle:
Some things are coming.
Dick Schwartz:
The things that are coming, are they things that you can not do?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
So what do you say to the part about all that?
Glennon Doyle:
I want to say that I will experiment with not doing any of the things that that part doesn’t want to do. I don’t know if we can adult and not do any of the things this part doesn’t want to do, but I actually do… It wants me to experiment with not doing any of the things that this part doesn’t want to do.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. And what are you saying to it about that?
Glennon Doyle:
I’m saying that we will take that request into consideration.
Dick Schwartz:
So there are other parts that want to do these things and would have trouble giving them up. Is that right? Yeah, so that’s what we call a polarization. So maybe tell the part that you’re going to work with these other parts that are so attached to doing these things and we’ll see if you can work out some kind of arrangement or some kind of deal with those parts and see how it reacts to that idea.
Glennon Doyle:
It wants to be the most important.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. What do you say to it about that?
Glennon Doyle:
I get it. I also want it to be the most important. I’m obsessed with this little thing, whatever the fuck it is.
Dick Schwartz:
You’re what?
Glennon Doyle:
I am obsessed with this part. For the first time, I really want to do right by this part.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. How about this then? Would you be willing to commit to it for a period of time to not do these other things and see how it goes?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
So do that and see how it reacts.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Okay. I think that is good.
Dick Schwartz:
Don’t think, just ask it and wait for the answer. Just wait, be patient.
Glennon Doyle:
It feels happy and playful about that.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. And what’s the time period? Just ask it what it could live with as a test.
Glennon Doyle:
Six months.
Dick Schwartz:
And how is that for you? For these other parts, can they do that?
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Dick Schwartz:
No?
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Dick Schwartz:
All right. So see if it can shorten the time.
Glennon Doyle:
I think what this thing wants to do, and I’m thinking, okay, I’m not thinking. This part of me wants to not be in situations where it feels like it can’t be itself. Okay. So this part wants to just say what it wants to say. It wants to be how it wants to be, wants to not control itself or be scared.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay, sounds reasonable. But these other parts want to put you in those situations where you have to be somebody else. Okay, so we’re not going to resolve it today, but this would be, if I were working with you, this would be a ongoing negotiation. And if we were to take a next step at this point, I would have you ask the part if it is stuck in the past somewhere that we need to get it out of. And that’s often a little more emotional. So we don’t have to do that if you don’t want, but we could.
Glennon Doyle:
No, we can.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. So ask it where it might be stuck in the past and don’t think, just wait and see what comes, because your thinking mind will get it wrong. So just wait and see if something comes now.
Glennon Doyle:
What comes is that this part isn’t stuck in the past. This part is presently joyful and it’s all the parts that don’t want me to do what that part wants me to do that is stuck in the past.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay, that’s good to know. Let it know you get that.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like this part wants me to believe that we can just play and be happy, but the other parts are like, “No, you can’t. You have to do the thing. You have to be with those people. You have to do the work, you have to follow the schedule, you have to do all these things.” It’s like those are the parts in the past. This one is just, I think she’s right.
Dick Schwartz:
I do too. So ask her if she’d like us to work with one of those other parts.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s what she would like. She wants to be left the fuck alone.
Dick Schwartz:
All right. Should we keep going?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
All right. So focus on that driven part that’s always pushing. You find it in your body or around your body?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
Where do you find it?
Glennon Doyle:
It’s much higher. It’s very chesty and shoulder-y and heavy.
Dick Schwartz:
How do you feel toward it?
Glennon Doyle:
I feel tight.
Dick Schwartz:
Tight like afraid of it or tight like it makes you feel tight?
Glennon Doyle:
It makes me feel rigid.
Dick Schwartz:
Yeah, but how do you feel toward it?
Glennon Doyle:
I feel a little bit uptight or scared.
Dick Schwartz:
Scared of it?
Glennon Doyle:
What’s the word? I don’t feel scared of it. I feel bossed around by it. I feel like-
Dick Schwartz:
Sort of controlled by it?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
Which is what that part was complaining about.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And it doesn’t have a lot of breath. It makes me feel like not a lot of breath.
Dick Schwartz:
But let’s get all the parts that have an attitude about it to give us some space to just help it and get to know it. So you can just open your mind to it.
Glennon Doyle:
Because that’s not a bad part either.
Dick Schwartz:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Dick Schwartz:
It’s trying to protect you for some reason. We’ll find out.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Dick Schwartz:
How do you feel toward it now?
Glennon Doyle:
Curious.
Dick Schwartz:
So let it know and just see what it wants you to know about itself and why it does this so much, what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel like it’s saying I’m scared for us.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right. How do you feel toward it as you get that it’s really just scared?
Glennon Doyle:
Now it’s just feeling like all of the people that are wild, high energy, stressful in my life. I feel like it’s just trying to keep us… I feel like I can see it from a bit of a distance when you say it that way.
Dick Schwartz:
How much distance would you say in terms of feet away?
Glennon Doyle:
Not far, like one foot.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. That’s better than being totally blended with it. So from that little bit of distance, again, ask it what it’s afraid would happen. It said it’s really afraid if it didn’t push you this way.
Glennon Doyle:
I hear you’ll be worthless. Everything will fall apart.
Dick Schwartz:
Got it. Okay. So it really feels the responsibility of keeping you together and keeping you from feeling worthless. Is that right?
Glennon Doyle:
Worth keeps coming in. It’s like what will you be worth? What will you be worth to your family? What will you be worth to your sister? What will you be worth to the world? What will you be worth? You’ll be worthless.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. Okay. Does that make sense that it would be pushing to make you valuable?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay. So now how do you feel toward it?
Glennon Doyle:
I understand it.
Dick Schwartz:
So let it know that.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Dick Schwartz:
So ask if it protects the part of you that does feel worthless.
Glennon Doyle:
So when you say that, I feel the other part glowing.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think that I feel worthless anymore because of that other little glowing part.
Dick Schwartz:
So it may be that this driven part just needs to be updated. You follow me?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dick Schwartz:
So let it know that that one has been healed and it doesn’t feel worthless anymore. And just see how it reacts to that info.
Glennon Doyle:
It feels like it was very tornado-y and now it’s muting a little bit. The colors are muting a little bit. It’s a little bit further away.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay, that’s great. And ask it if it could really trust that it didn’t have to do this to make you feel valuable all the time, what might it like to do if it was freed up to do something else?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, it’s like a blob.
Dick Schwartz:
It wants to rest, I bet.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It’s like tornado to blob.
Dick Schwartz:
Okay, so let it know that’s where you’re headed. You’re going to free it up so it can be a blob.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. Now we’ve got a gray blob and a glowing little hot pink orange part over here and a gray blob.
Dick Schwartz:
We’ll finish in a minute, but let’s go back to the glowing one and just ask if it’s aware of the piece of work you just did with the other one and how it feels about that.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s saying you thought the energy was in the tornado, but the energy is in the glowing blob. That’s not even the energy. You think if you live over with that part, that’s where the energy is, but that’s not it. It’s in the glowing.
Dick Schwartz:
Yeah. Yeah. What’s it like to get all that?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, Dick Schwartz, I feel like I want to paint.
Dick Schwartz:
Great. Well, don’t run off just yet.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I’m not going to, not going anywhere. That feels really understandable. The idea of understanding ourselves as a community of helpers makes so much more sense to me than my whole life where I’ve been, “Am I this or that? Am I this or that?” Just we are, all of our pronouns should be we.
Dick Schwartz:
It’s true.
Glennon Doyle:
And the idea that they’re all just trying to help.
Dick Schwartz:
Sorry.
Glennon Doyle:
I have so much compassion towards your little glowy self because can you imagine I just identify a tiny bit because I feel like my primary role part, my loudest part is protector. And I am very often seen as a real pain in the ass to everyone, but I feel like I’m just loving them through protecting them. And so when your little glowing part who has just been working so hard to protect you your whole life and has your life force in it, but then has been continuously just villainized and shamed as if that’s the worst part of you and everything’s good about you except for this part that keeps doing these things. And if you could just eradicate that, you’d be a good person. And it was just trying to do its best the whole time.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right. That’s exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
I started during this round of recovery, I started understanding before I understood all the language that you have given us, that there was a part of me that did not feel heard. And it was a very young part of me. And when I recovered from bulimia, I thought I was recovered, but really I just replaced bulimia with anorexia. I just controlled that part. I just kept that part banished.
Dick Schwartz:
Exactly right. Exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
And so I started going for these long walks in the morning and just said, “Okay, that part, you can have these walks. This is where we’re going to spend time together and you’re going to be able to say whatever you need to say.” This part would just rise up. And it was all in memories and all taking me back to childhood. And I started calling them the exile walks because it was like the part of myself that I had exiled.
That was obviously after I got your language. And I just spent a lot of time with that part. And it really just had always wanted me to tell the truth. It always just wanted us to not pretend it didn’t exist. I was talking to my therapist yesterday who is very knowledgeable and speaks in this language, in the IFS language. And we were talking about how I actually have been painting so much lately, which if you knew me, it’s the weirdest thing. It’s so unproductive. It’s horrible. I’m awful at it, but I do it for hours a day. It’s so fun. This fun thing is brand new. And she said, “Isn’t it interesting that you spent enough time with this part?”
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
And now it can play.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right. Exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so wild.
Abby Wambach:
Can you explain the exile?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Tell us about the exiles.
Dick Schwartz:
Yeah. As I was confronted with all these different parts from my clients, I’m a systems thinker, so I’m trying to make sense of the patterns. And like I would with a family, that’s what we learned to do with family therapy is track the sequences of interaction and create a map of the family patterns. So I’m just doing that with this internal system. And the big distinctions that leaped out immediately were between the parts we’ve been talking about, well we’ve been talking about both, but what we call protectors, who we just talked to the striver part, it’s trying to protect you that way and the eating disorder parts doing that way. And then the parts they protect because as I would talk to these protectors, they would point to these others that they can’t change until that’s been healed because that’s somewhere locked away and it just drives the whole system.
And so it turned out that yeah, there are what we call exiled parts that you tended to lock away for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they just don’t fit in your family and your family doesn’t like those parts of you and so you have to exile them inside in inner basements or abysses. And then sometimes it’s the impact of trauma. So these are generally the younger parts. They’re these inner children who before they get hurt, they have these wonderful qualities like creativity and playfulness and wanting to love people and be close and all of that. But because they’re the most sensitive parts of us, they get hurt the most by the traumas and the rejections and the betrayals. And so they take on these burdens of emotional pain or terror or worthlessness also. And once they carry those burdens, we don’t want to be around them because they can overwhelm us with those feelings and make us totally feel that way.
And so we lock them away too. And so most of us have a lot of exiles and when you have a lot of exiles, you feel more delicate and the world seems a lot more dangerous because so many things could trigger them. And if they get triggered, they explode out and overwhelm you and then you’re in bed for a week. And so to keep them contained, you have all these protectors and their job is to both control the outside world, like the managers, what we call manager type protectors so that you don’t get triggered or keep you from feeling much, keep you a little dissociated from your body.
So even if you did, you didn’t feel it much or there’s a whole bunch of different, we call manager roles. So the critics are often big managers, if they criticize you enough, you’ll stay small and you won’t take risks and you won’t get hurt. Or they’re criticizing you to try and motivate you to strive harder and work harder and look better, look perfect all the time. Or there’s caretaking managers that take care of everybody else but don’t let you take care of yourself and so on and so on. So we all have a bunch of managers, but if an exile gets triggered enough, it’s life-threatening it feels like. And so there’s another set of parts who immediately go into action to get you away right now, get you out of your body, get you higher than the flames of emotion.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
Take you often what seems to be out of control because you can’t stop them. So they’re very impulsive and reactive, damn the torpedoes, I don’t care about the collateral damage to your body, to your relationships. I just have to save your life by doing this extreme thing right now.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
And so most of us have a bunch of those also. They’re not active all the time. Sometimes with some people they are, but most of us, they’re just standby. We call them firefighters because fighting the flames of exile of emotion. And usually there’s a hierarchy of them. So you’ve got these low risk firefighters like binging on TV or work or whatever. And then there’s the higher risks like anorexia and at the top of the hierarchy for most people is suicide. It’s the ultimate firefighter.
And so these lower level firefighters are literally saving your life a lot of the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s the map to the territory. And then there is self, and when I was asking you the question, how do you feel toward these parts? I was checking to see how much of your self was present and I didn’t have you interact with the part until you said, “Yeah, I can open my mind. I’m curious about it. Or even I care about it. I feel a lot of love for it.” So the saving grace with all this is there is this self in there who can begin to depolarize, begin to get parts out of where they’re stuck in the past and begin to have them all start to trust you as the leader, which is where we started was how can we get that part to trust you? And it was very clear, I’m not going to trust you until you stop putting me in these situations.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like with anorexia or bulimia, I’m starting to figure out that I have a moment of dissociation before the eating behavior starts. I didn’t even know that for the last 30 years. I just thought I do these weird things and I don’t know why, but when we slow it down completely, we can see there’s a moment that comes that’s like this is a scary moment or something.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
It feels too much.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s the exile that got triggered. Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
And then-
Abby Wambach:
Firefighter.
Dick Schwartz:
It’s automatic.
Glennon Doyle:
15 minutes later, I’m in the toilet, I’m throwing up. I don’t even know what happened. I’m just-
Dick Schwartz:
That’s exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
So is that’s a part of me saying I have to do something dramatic right now to protect you from this thing that’s about to kill you, which are these big feelings. We are trying to avoid that.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
So even if it feels crazy, I’ve had moments where I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m a good mom. I’m a good mom.” That’s the one thing that I have been whatever that means, I am it. And I have had moments where I’m throwing up where my kids are outside the bathroom and I’m like, “Oh my God, they could find me.” And I think this part is so desperate.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Nothing else matters. It actually thinks we’re going to die because if it didn’t, it wouldn’t do this.
Dick Schwartz:
That’s right. That’s exactly right. Yeah. They don’t care about the collateral damage.
Abby Wambach:
So is the goal then with these exiled parts that get triggered that then send your firefighters into action, is the goal to deal with these exiled parts, bring them up, have a relationship with them so that you can develop the skill set to deal with the emotions when those get triggered so as to not need to call upon the firefighters? Or is it possible to deal with these exiled parts in a way that you no longer get triggered?
Dick Schwartz:
That is correct, yes. That’s the big goal of IFS is to heal these exiles so they don’t carry these burdens anymore and they can just be like your glowing part really is a healed exile. And so we have to convince these others that they don’t need to protect it in the same way, but it doesn’t need the protection it did. It won’t get triggered in the same way because you’ve unburdened it somehow.
That’s the goal. The challenge is, and what I learned the hard way with these internal systems is protectors are really, really scared to have you go to exiles. So generally we work with protectors first, not expecting them to change. So if I was working with your eating disorder part, I would say, “No, I’m not here to make you change. We just want to get to know you and we want to get permission to go to what you protect and what are you afraid would happen if we went to that exile, if we went to that little one who’s so hurt?” And there’s a common series of fears they have, they’re afraid of the overwhelm, they’re afraid of those emotions.
Like you said, they’re afraid of being judged by me. There’s a common set and now we have ways to address each of their fears, but we don’t go to exiles without permission from the protectors. I learned that the hard way because if you go without permission, there’s what we call protector backlash and you have some kind of big after reaction that’s pretty severe sometimes.
Glennon Doyle:
So is the eating disorder, the protector or the exile?
Dick Schwartz:
Eating disorder, so it’s likely that we started by talking to the eating disorder and then it showed the exile it had been protecting, which is the glowy part now. I’m not sure, you’d have to ask, but that would be my guess. It could be that that’s the transformation of the eating disorder part, but my understanding it’s still active, so I doubt that.
Glennon Doyle:
Interesting. Can you give us some common examples of exiles? If these are the most extreme parts that we as people have decided we can’t handle, they can’t be part of our lives, what are some of those that you see a lot?
Dick Schwartz:
Well, there are the vulnerable exiles that I mentioned earlier. So the parts of you that, because when you got hurt, they took on the worthlessness, they assumed that you must have no value because your parents treated you a certain way, but they’re young and they don’t know any better. And because they can make you now feel that worthlessness so you can’t even function or you shrink away. You can’t have that in your life. So then you lock them up. So that would be one common example. And the same is true for parts that carry a lot of terror that you can’t function if you’re feeling that terror all the time. So you tend to lock them up.
Glennon Doyle:
So the actual exile, whatever it is, is kind of arbitrary. It’s what we assigned to it. So if the shame is what’s overwhelming or the sense of worthlessness, we take this arbitrary exile and we say, “You are the one that I’m giving all the shame to and I’m putting you away so that I never have to face that shame.”
Dick Schwartz:
Yeah. I wouldn’t put it exactly like that. These are younger parts and they often are the ones that just believe what whoever hurt you said about you. So they take in that I’m not valuable message or because they’re young, they’re the ones that get scared the most by whatever trauma happened. And so now they’re just stuck in that, they’re frozen in that scene and they’re just terrified.
Or they feel the pain and the grief of the loss the most. And you don’t want to feel that all the time, so you lock them up. And you do it not thinking, “Oh, here’s this valuable part of me that carries, so now I’m going to lock it up.” You do it because ours is a kind of rugged individualist culture where the way to handle trauma is to just move on and don’t look back and just let the memories go and the emotions, and you do that thinking that’s all you’re doing, not realizing you’re distancing from your most precious qualities, your most precious parts. Because as we find when people get access to their exiles, they want to start to paint, they want to start to play. They get access to these things that they had locked away all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Dick Schwartz:
Does that make sense, Amanda?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
The exile, it feels to me like my most precious part.
Dick Schwartz:
Absolutely. Well, you don’t want to say that to your kids. You don’t want to say, “You’re my most precious kid.”
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, you’re partial to that part.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
You have a favorite child.
Dick Schwartz:
It’s great to welcome it, but you can say that secretly, but don’t tell your other parts that it’s the most precious part.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good advice.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to stop there with Dick Schwartz, but don’t worry because the next episode we are going to come back. Sister is going to go through her parts, Abby is going to go through her parts and we are going to figure out with Dick Schwartz how you can start to know your parts and live more in this self, this capital S self that operates from curiosity, calm, confidence, compassion, creativity and clarity, courage and connectedness that we’re all trying to live from. Come back next time. Bye.